There’s estrogen, and plenty of it, in Mustang, a film that explores the treatment of the Feminine in a coastal village in northern Turkey. Co-written and directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven, the movie creates a personal and cultural tug of war between two archetypes – Venus and Mars – culminating in a bittersweet victory. The […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: Magic Mike XXL (2015)
July 1, 2015 by
Putting away the things of childhood is the extra-extra large theme behind Magic Mike XXL. Sure there’s plenty of male skin here. But the movie, directed by Gregory Jacobs, has its serious underside: a likeable bunch of strippers’ search for their self-identities. There’s a lot of archetypal Mars – males, physicality, energy, sex and sexual […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Cake’ (2015)
January 19, 2015 by
Physical and psychological immobilization caused by pain can be literally life-halting. This inability to go forward is at the heart of Cake, a sly exploration of the energy-fueled Mars archetype. Typically the operative archetype in summer tentpole actioners, Mars – the ability to go after what one wants in life through will power, ego, motion […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Wild Tales’ (2014)
December 27, 2014 by
Wild Tales (Relatos Salvajes), from Argentine director Damian Szifron, is a film of six stories, each one a tale about people getting even. Vengefulness and retaliatory measures, as responses to offensive acts, have been around since the beginning of time. And, if animals retaliated in bestial ways when their kill was poached, Szifron makes it […]
Astrology: Fashion: Emma Stone’s Red Sailor Suit in ‘Magic in the Moonlight’
July 27, 2014 by
It’s tough to resist a gal in uniform, and that goes for Emma Stone’s character Sophie Baker in Magic in the Moonlight. Although Sophie’s fame is as a mystic – she’s communing with the spirits in France when we meet her – she’s also meant to be seen as a regular gal. The contrast between […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘Filth’ (2014)
May 26, 2014 by
The Mars archetype works overtime in Filth, directed and written by Jon S. Baird, and based on Irvine Welsh’s book. While over the top aggression, anger, abuse, sexual addiction and the infliction of pain of every sort dominate the life of Scottish detective sergeant Bruce Robertson (James McAvoy), the red planet that rules weaponry is […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘Joe’ (2014)
April 7, 2014 by
Fighting for and protecting another person usually mean one thing. You’re already pretty good at wielding your fists on your own behalf. That’s an apt description of Joe Ransom (Nicolas Cage), the titular character of the movie Joe, directed by David Gordon Green and based on a book by Gary Brown. Toiling in an impoverished […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ (2013)
December 26, 2013 by
Based on the true story of crooked broker Jordan Belfort, Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street is a three-hour evocation of the revelry-filled Roman festival known as the Saturnalia. At some point during that ancient manic carnival, the head reveler was put to death. This mythology-as-art winds up imitating life as Belfort’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) […]
Astrology: Fashion: Katniss Everdeen’s Epaulets
December 3, 2013 by
They look feathery feminine and flower-petal sleek. But make no mistake about it. Those shoulder-level adornments worn by Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire are epaulets. Also known as epaulettes – the singular means “little shoulder,” derived from the French word épaule; the feminine “ette” has très appeal – these devices clearly […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘Out of the Furnace’ (2013)
December 3, 2013 by
The testosterone-suffused Out of the Furnace, written and co-directed by Scott Cooper, is a grim take on archetypal Mars gone berserk. The red planet, which oversees the business of how one goes about getting what one wants, bleeds its crimson in every frame, symbolically if not literally. In the Rust Belt, specifically Braddock, Pennsylvania, where […]
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